I never thought I was into wildlife and nature much. When initially planning my trip I didn't even include the Galápagos let alone the Amazon. I concentrated on cities and beach destinations. On leaving Melbourne though, after many hours of googling "South America highlights" and "must dos South America", the Amazon and the Galápagos were the two adventures I looked forward to most.

The jungle did not disappoint.

The departure point for trips in Bolivia is Rurrenabaque, a small town which, with its tourism, humidity and motorbikes, reminded me of South East Asia. It's a bumpy 45 minute flight from La Paz or an even bumpier 20 hour bus ride.

_There are two main type of trips to chose from: the Jungle and the Pampas. I chose the later as it promised more wildlife spotting (I really wanted to see alligators!), and less insects. Killian and Ester, the German couple from the Inca Trail, also wanted to do the Pampas so it worked out perfectly.

One of my favourite things is being driven around. It's weird, but I love being the passenger in any form of transport, just daydreaming as I look out the window. This pastime is not for everyone though, and the four couples jammed into the back of the jeep for the three hour drive to the National Park on a dirt road didn't seem to appreciate the adventure as much as I did...

When we arrived at the Yucama river we didn't really know what to expect. Were we going to see much wildlife? This question was quickly answered when we were on the water as the whole river side was littered with caiman and alligators! Yes! There were also monkeys, a lot of cute turtles hanging out on branches and the funny looking capybaras.

_On the second day we were up early to go anaconda hunting! I spoke to someone who had done it the day before and had spent six hours looking for a snake so when we found one after half an hour we were pretty excited. An added bonus too was finding a cobra at our camp. Two metres away from our dorm! Jimmy, our fearless tour guide caught the cobra and we could all have a hold. Jimmy had been bitten by cobras four times and it didn't affect him anymore since his body was now used to the venom. Later he told us that his father had been killed by an anaconda only three years ago so it was amazing to see him so fearless with such dangerous creatures.

_After an afternoon siesta in the hammocks over looking the river, we went piranha fishing. This was not easy as these suckers are so sneaky! They grab the bait so fast and by the time you pull them in, the fish have gone and the hook is empty. This meant no piranha for dinner but we did get some for lunch the next day when another group had a more successful fishing trip!

During the many hours on the rivers we would get glimpses of pink dolphins so we were all pretty excited when on our last morning we were to go swimming with the dolphins. It took us awhile to find a spot were they were and after asking Jimmy a million times about the presence of crocs and piranhas in the water we all jumped in to play with the dolphins. They weren't very cooperative though, especially when trying to take photos!

The three days on the river have definitely been a highlight of my trip so far and I would say the pampas deserve their place on the "must do" list for Bolivia.

Oh, Bolivia!In true Bolivian style the adventure didn't stop once we got back to Rurrenabaque. We were supposed to fly out at 4:30pm on the Friday but the plane was stranded in La Paz. For some reason they don't fly at night so when the plane turned up just before sunset there was a mad rush to get us all boarded. We had to load all the bags on ourselves in order to speed things up and had to just sit anywhere in the plane to save time fussing about. It was madness with all the airport staff yelling at the 40 passengers to hurry! Once we got all the bags packed and the seats were full they rolled the stairs back and we had to disembark. It was too dark and we were going to have to stay another night in Rurre and fly out at 5:30 the next morning...